Inherited Social Housing Tenancies Debate
Full Debate: Read Full DebateDepartment: Department for Work and Pensions
Angela Watkinson
Main Page: Angela Watkinson (Conservative - Hornchurch and Upminster)Department Debates - View all Angela Watkinson's debates with the Department for Work and Pensions
Inherited Social Housing Tenancies
Angela Watkinson Excerpts(10 years, 1 month ago)
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Esther McVey
We will be covering the costs—that is what we will be doing. So when we receive that, we will have it, just as we trebled discretionary housing payments to support people and just as we did when we put in an extra £20 million to support local authorities, which, in fact, they did not need—they needed only £13 million. We have been supporting them all the way.
Dame Angela Watkinson (Hornchurch and Upminster) (Con)
Given that nearly 400,000 families in the social housing sector are overcrowded, can the Minister think of a single reason why any individual should be allowed to under-occupy simply because their tenancy is inherited?
Esther McVey
My hon. Friend is right; no, I cannot. It is only when we meet people who are living in overcrowded accommodation, or who are on a waiting list with their children, and we look at the conditions they are living in, that we realise what a lamentable mess we had been left with and how we have to clear it up. How can we justify 1 million spare rooms when other people are sometimes crammed together in a room? So my hon. Friend is correct in what she says.